Each winter season, Eastman holds a “Holiday Sing” which brings the school together to

celebrate and perform together in a fun and informal atmosphere. Describe a tradition that is
particularly important to you, including specific details. Why is it meaningful and how has it
impacted you?

Spending Christmas Eve with my large and loud Italian family means a lot to me. This
event has been a holiday tradition for the DeLuca family for decades. I cannot remember my
first Christmas Eve with my family, but since then it has been something I have looked forward
to every year. On Christmas Eve, my entire family attends Church with my great grandparents.
Since there are so many of us, one of my aunts goes to Church early to reserve three to four
pews for the family to sit together.

My sister and I would sit beside my Grandma JoJo, and both of my cousins Gena and
Arabella. If we acted up during the service, we would have to sit with my fathers. After the
Church service, we take family pictures then go to my great grandparents house for dinner.
During the drive from Church to my great grandparents, my father Tony would ask us questions
about why we celebrate Christmas, the names of my great grandparent’s parents, and other
questions that my great grandfather might ask us before dinner. These were the same
questions my dad was asked when he was also a kid.

If you have ever been to a Bucco di Beppo restaurant, you have been to my great
grandparent’s basement. Their walls are completely covered in school pictures, wedding
pictures, cartoon drawings, and a map of Italy. The long dinner table is in the middle of the
room, with handmade name cards to show each person where to sit. The kids sit at their own
table, then my great grandfather would ask the kids, starting with the youngest grandchild, his
questions. After the questions, we would pray and then sing a couple of Christmas carols. After
this, we were then dismissed to get our food.

Dinner consisted of homemade Cavatelli and sauce, meatballs, ham, salad, olives,
shadone, and some kind of pasta with anchovies. There were a variety of different desserts, but
the most consumed would be the homemade assorted cookies. After dinner, each of the
grandchildren were assigned a task to help cleanup. Someone would be asked to gather up the
tents, another collected the candles, and the boys were assigned to put up chairs. Everyone
had a job to get the room clean and ready for the annual gift exchange.

My father Rick refers to the gift exchange as the “Screaming of Christmas”, because it
would get very loud when all the grandchildren opened their gifts to play with the new toys they
got. After opening up the presents and throwing away all of the wrapping paper laying all over
the floor, it was time to go home and get to bed, so that Santa could visit. There are so many
great memories of our Christmas Eve traditions. This large and very loud Italian family
welcomed my sister and I into their family, and by default I essentially became an honorary
Italian.
 As the grandchildren grew up and my great grandparents got older, the Christmas Eve
tradition began to change. Years ago, my Grandma JoJo died of cancer, so we are not able to
sit with her at Church or take pictures with with her anymore. A couple of years later, everyone
stopped going to Church together first. Instead, we started to go directly to our great
grandparent’s house. Both of my great grandparent’s health has been getting progressively
worse. Three years ago we had dinner to discuss why we have to stop having Christmas Eve
dinner at their house. They could not host the Christmas Eve dinner because they could not
easily get down to the basement, or do the cooking on their own. We started having dinner at
one of my aunt’s house instead.

It’s nice that we still get together for the holiday, but it does not feel the same as it used
to. Luckily, most of the food at the dinner is the same, but it is just prepared by someone else.
As the grandchildren got older, the “Screaming of Christmas” started to die down. There are
only two young great grandchildren, so there is no need for a grand gift exchange anymore.

My family has started to develop new traditions overtime also. For the past several years
we have went on a holiday trip consistently. We would wake up on Christmas morning and go
away for the week between Christmas and New Years. We never go to the same place again
though, at least for this holiday. We have gone to New York City, Orlando, Paris, Phoenix and.
Reykjavik. When we get back to Cleveland, we get together with my aunts, Fran and Gena, and
both of their families. We have dinner, play games, and have an exchange of gifts.

As I get older, I wonder how these holiday traditions will continue to evolve, and how we will
adapt. There will come a day when my great grandparents will no longer be with us, and I
possibly cannot imagine what those Christmas Eves would be like. Luckily, my father Tony and
my Aunt Fran take a lot of pictures and videos, so that we will have them in the future. Maybe
even I can share them with my family one day.